I stared at him for a moment, sure I’d misunderstood. But as crazy as it sounded, I didn’t see what else he could have meant. “He was going to pimp you out?”
Pritkin shot me a glance, and something of the tension went out of his shoulders. His face relaxed, not into a smile, but into something less forbidding. “If you could see your expression.”
“How else am I supposed to look? You’re his son!”
“Which makes me a bargaining chip. Or was supposed to. I don’t know what he envisioned—someone like him, I suppose, handsome, charming, ready to bed whomever and whatever was needed for the good of the clan. He did as much himself when it would help his negotiations. But while he could offer a power exchange, he couldn’t give the other races what they truly wanted.”
“And what was that?” I asked, almost afraid to find out.
“Children. Progeny who might carry the traits of both parents, thereby enriching the line with new blood for eons to come. Full demons have an incredibly low reproductive rate. They live for so long, if anything else were true, they would face mass starvation. But humans . . .”
He paused, but I didn’t push it, didn’t say anything. I just sat there, torn between horror and outrage. But he saw, and that same quiet came over his face, as if my anger somehow lessened his own.
“It is the greatest strength humans have, and their greatest asset in the struggle to survive. Despite living far longer, other sentient species can’t touch the human reproductive rate, can’t even come close. Rosier spent centuries trying and failing to father a child with other demonic races. But it wasn’t until he switched to human partners that he managed it. And even then . . .”
Pritkin trailed off, but I knew he was thinking about the countless children Rosier had fathered on his quest and who had died—and had taken their mothers along with them. I’d never known if that was because of the terrible rate of death in childbirth among ancient and medieval women, or if it was the fact that the babies were half-incubus, a species designed to prey on human energy, that had been the cause. But none had lived. None until him.
“So he wasn’t pimping you out,” I said harshly. “He was putting you out to stud.”
“In a manner of speaking. Half demons aren’t overly fertile, either, but in comparison . . . And any demon race would give more—much more—for a power exchange, if even an outside chance of a child came with it.”
“And I thought I hated him before,” I said grimly. “How could he expect you to agree to that?”
“Because a full demon would have, without question. Would not have concerned himself with the futures of any children he helped to create, or the use Rosier was putting to the influence he gained. He would have viewed it as an honor, as a way to help the clan and to increase his own status at the same time. But needless to say, I felt differently.”
“I’d hope so!”
“My refusal caused the first major breach between us, although there had been others. But it was what finally convinced me to leave it all behind, to rejoin the human world, to build a life free of him, of the courts, of the constant scheming and power plays.”
“And he let you go?”
Pritkin finally smiled, and it wasn’t a very nice one. “I forced his hand, you might say. But in the end, it mattered little, as his ambition for me remained the same. And a monogamous marriage to a nonentity would do nothing to service it. He said he warned her, but he does nothing counter to his own interests. Nothing!”
I didn’t say anything that time, because I had finally caught on to where he was going with this. At least, I was afraid that I had. But I don’t think Pritkin noticed. He was staring at the damn paneling, but his face was . . . somewhere else.
“I will never know for certain what went on at that meeting,” he said. “I know only what she did. On our wedding night, she initiated the exchange of power. I believe she hoped it would strengthen her own magic, make her acceptable in the eyes of the courts. And had she been fully demon, even half, it may well have done so. May have given her entry into that world she wanted so badly. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t understand. . . .”
He paused, and for a moment, I thought that would be it. But then he spoke again. And it was so raw, so bitter, that the very tone hurt to hear.
“The exchange of power is designed to be exactly that. But I suppose she never wondered what would happen if one partner had no excess power to give. Had nothing but the energy she needed to live. And I was . . . distracted.... I didn’t notice what was happening, not for a moment, because incubi typically feed in those instances. But not that much, not that fully. And by the time I realized, it was too late. Before the cycle could even properly begin, she was—” His lips tightened. “She never received anything back. She never had time. She gave and gave and then it was over . . . so quickly. . . .”
He trailed off, for which I was grateful. Pritkin had described what happened once before, and I remembered the conversation in vivid detail. It was a little hard to forget, as he hadn’t spared himself. He hadn’t told me the reason his wife ended up a dried-up shell of a creature, shriveled and desiccated, barely recognizable as human. But he had made sure I knew who had been responsible, at least in his mind.
He might have hated his father because of what he knew or suspected.
But he hated himself a lot more.
Again, I didn’t know what to say. Except the obvious. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said quietly, only to have him give me a look of incredulous disbelief.
“I’ve just explained—”
“That you tried to stop it and you couldn’t. What else could you have done? You didn’t know—”
“I should have! There must have been signs, clues to what she intended—and yet I saw nothing!”
“Maybe there was nothing to see. Maybe she was careful—”
“Maybe I was a blind fool!” He got up and poured more whiskey. “I should have realized what was going on, should have noticed how giddy she suddenly was, how happy . . . but I put it down to the forthcoming wedding. Women like weddings, all the . . . the decorations and the gowns and the . . . And I was busy searching for a home for us. I’d lived in bachelor quarters until then, but they wouldn’t do for her, and—”
He broke off and went back to the sofa. He took the whiskey bottle along. I really couldn’t blame him.
“That night . . . I should have been able to shut things down before they progressed that far. But I couldn’t, because I’d refused to mate with demons, had restricted myself to humans, and therefore knew little about the process. I knew what was happening, but not how to stop it. And obviously, neither did she. I’d kept my lofty principles, thwarted my father’s wishes, and in doing so, left myself ignorant in the one area that mattered. And he knew that. Knew he had the perfect way to punish me for daring to tell him no—”
“Which is my point,” I said, leaning forward, because I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Rosier set you up. If you want to blame someone, blame him!”
“I do! But he wasn’t there. He didn’t drain her, he didn’t steal her life away, didn’t feel her crumble in his arms like—”
He cut off, breathing hard, and put his head in his hands. I went over and sat beside him, not hugging him because those moments in the shower had been an aberration, and I somehow knew he wouldn’t appreciate it now. Maybe because of the nervous energy that was thrumming through him, like a grounded lightning rod. I could feel it, just sitting there, an electric charge jumping under his skin.
I didn’t know what to say to Pritkin. When you hated and blamed yourself for something for years, it became truth, your truth, whether it actually was or not. And technically, we were in the same boat. What had happened to Eugenie wasn’t my fault, at least in the sense that I couldn’t have prevented it.